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Year for Priests: Reflecting on vocation, ministry

Name: Msgr. Richard Emil Zenk

Birth date including year: May 10, 1927

Hometown: Alton, Iowa

Education: St. Mary’s Academy, Alton, Iowa – 12 years; St. John’s University, Collegeville, Minn. – 4 years; Gregorian University, Rome, Italy – 7 years.

Ordination date: December 8, 1954

Current assignment: Administrator, St. Patrick’s Church, Akron, Iowa; diocesan director of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith; executive secretary of Calvary Cemetery in Sioux City; and a Defender of the Bond – Diocesan Tribunal of Sioux City.

Hobbies/Interests: Reading – and some traveling in my younger years and visiting many of the Catholic Missions in different countries.

Describe your call to priesthood. I suppose it was the urging of the local pastor to go to college and see if the priesthood was my vocation. So I started college and during college I decided to continue studying for the priesthood. Then Bishop Mueller asked me to study theology in Rome, and after my ordination, he asked that I continue there for three years of canon law.

Did anyone or anything provide you with inspiration to follow the call to priesthood? Perhaps it was prayers of my mother who died when I was 10 years old and the members of my family – especially my father who supported me during those years. It was also the example of some of the priests I knew over the years.

Was it a difficult decision to make? Not really. I just continued from year to year during college and the seminary and I was receiving assurances from faculty members along the way.

What do you enjoy most about being a priest? Perhaps simply helping someone along the way to salvation. I was a hospital chaplain in Sioux City for about seven years and that was a special opportunity to do just that.

Are there any particular devotions or prayers that are dear to your heart? Perhaps silent personal prayer with the Gospels in the church. I am still working on that.

Why do you find priesthood to be a worthy vocation? There is really nothing like it! For example, in the administration of the sacrament of reconciliation, the confessor has the opportunity to help the penitent – not only to forgive his/her sins – but with a little advice to help the penitent avoid sin and to grow in virtue and holiness.

What would you say to a young man considering a vocation to the priesthood? Indeed I would. The recompense is out of this world.